The Joy of Riding Stolen Horses
by Butternut
Summary: A cute little stand-alone L/L set right after the Max debacle. (It's old news, but good news.) Rating is for a couple of swears.


Disclaimer: I don't own any of the following characters. They belong to somebody who sure knows how to string along an audience.  
  
AN: This was written a while back, and then I forgot about it, and then I found it again, and polished it up some. It probably wouldn't have been hard to change the Max situation into a more current Chris situation, but I'm a lazy, lazy person, who very rarely posts fanfiction anyway, and if I had attempted to rewrite this piece I would never get it up online.  
  
AN the second: Ok, did anyone else get previews for an all-new, "Lorelei and Rory egging Jess's car" episode, and then get treated to a Christmas repeat? And then the preview at the end of this week's episode was for a completely different episode again. Where are the eggs? If anyone saw it, or knows what's going on, please let me know.  
  
All right. On with the story.  
  
The Joy of Riding Stolen Horses  
  
"Alright, Mom, what's the deal?" demanded Rory. "You've been moping around the house for a week since you and Max broke up, and yet you say it's not about him and that you can't talk about it."  
  
"That pretty much sums up what the 'deal' is," replied Lorelei with a brief flash of a grin that had recently been kept in hiding. "I love you to death, sweetie, but this is something I just can't talk about."  
  
"But you always talk about everything. You once told the mailman about the great date you had the night before."  
  
"It was a funny, anecdotal-type date."  
  
"You drew sketches on the back of someone else's mail."  
  
"Carl is a very visual mailman."  
  
Rory sighed. "Mom, please. Tell me what's going on."  
  
"I can't."  
  
Rory stood and paced the room before turning back to her mom. "Do you have a plan then?"  
  
"Well, I plan on eating some pizza later, but somehow I don't think that's what you mean."  
  
"A plan," repeated Rory in frustration. "Because whatever it is you're doing now, this keeping it bottled inside is not good for you. And you have hardly been out at all."  
  
"Untrue! I go to work everyday."  
  
"You go to work and you come home and you sit and. I don't know what. You haven't been to Luke's all week. How can you be surviving without his coffee?"  
  
Lorelei looked away and muttered, "Some things you just have to live without."  
  
"What? Please, Mom, stop this. Whatever this is, it's scaring the. shit out of me."  
  
Lorelei blinked. "Shit?"  
  
"Yeah, you heard me. Perfect little Rory Gilmore swears."  
  
"Ok," said Lorelei.  
  
"Ok, what?"  
  
"Ok, I'm done with all this thinking and moping. I've made a decision."  
  
"And that would be.?"  
  
Lorelei smiled at her daughter. "Rory, I will tell you soon enough, I promise. But there's somebody else who needs to hear it first."  
  
"You're going back to Max?" Rory couldn't quite keep the disappointment out of her voice, and Lorelei had to bite back a chuckle.  
  
"Later," she promised as she sped to the door. A moment later Rory saw her walking down the street, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Not even her mother, who apparently needed swearwords to get her moving, would walk all the way to Hartford.  
  
It was ten to ten, and Luke scrubbed at the already spotless counter, waiting for the day to be over. The past week had been truly awful, yet perfectly in sync with the rest of the month. Just as he had realized his feelings for Lorelei, she had become unavailable to him. And then when he finally found out the engagement was off, she stopped coming to the diner. She always came to the diner. Even when he was being a complete jerk. These past few Lorelei-less days had been calm, boring, and utter hell.  
  
He suddenly heard the bell over the door ring, and he looked up with an especially potent version of his usual glare. His shock at seeing Lorelei was not strong enough to overcome the anger and pain she had caused, and his brow darkened further.  
  
"We're closing," he grunted.  
  
Lorelei smiled up at him. "I know. That's why I'm here now, 'cause I know you get lonesome at night when all the customers leave."  
  
"I did just fine this past week," he retorted, and her smile faltered. Sighing inwardly, she walked up to the counter. This was the conversation she had been dreading.  
  
"I'm sorry, Luke."  
  
"There's no need to be sorry, the solution is simple," he replied, deliberately misinterpreting her apology. "Leave, and I can close."  
  
"I will leave," she promised. "After I've said what I came here to say." She sat down at the counter and gazed down at her hands. "I can't believe I'm actually wringing my hands," she muttered. "I thought people only did that in books."  
  
Luke let go of the cleaning rag and stepped back, watching Lorelei carefully. She was quiet and subdued-a paler version of her usual self. He also noticed the dark rings under her eyes and rather sloppy attire. Obviously, she had suffered this past week, too, probably over Max.  
  
"Say it, then," he told her, in a much more gentle tone. She took a deep breath, let it out, and then took another.  
  
"Sometime tonight, maybe?" He inquired sarcastically.  
  
"Ok, gotcha. Tonight," babbled Lorelei. "You want it tonight. I was going to drag it out for a week, maybe add a cliffhanger somewhere in the middle, like a "who shot J.R." moment, but if you want it all straight up then I guess that's what you'll get."  
  
"Lorelei, either tell me what you came here to say, or leave."  
  
She glared at him suddenly, feeling cornered and panicky. "This isn't easy, you know."  
  
"No."  
  
"No, what?"  
  
"No, I don't know, because I don't know what's going on."  
  
"Well, if you'd stop interrupting."  
  
"If you'd get on with it."  
  
"Hold you horses, bucko!" She stood now, angry. "You'll hear it when I'm good and ready."  
  
"Fine," he replied with exquisite boredom, "then come back when you're ready."  
  
"Ooh, I should have known this would happen. You always refuse to cooperate when you're up on your high horse."  
  
"I'm not on any horse! And what's with all the horse references, by the way?"  
  
"I don't know! Who cares? I didn't plan on talking about horses, maybe I keep thinking of them because you're acting like a horse's ass!"  
  
"Great, fine. I'm glad you came here to tell me that."  
  
" Luke, I came here to tell you I love you. That I broke up with my fiancé because all I could think about was you."  
  
"You what?"  
  
"I broke up with Max. you must have heard about it. It's the juiciest piece of gossip Star's Hollow has had all month."  
  
"No! I mean, yes, I heard, but that wasn't the part I needed repeating." He reached over the counter and clasped her hand in his. "You love me?"  
  
Lorelei looked at his hand on hers, noticing that his skin was more tanned, that he had a small scar on his knuckle, little details that she wanted to be able to remember if she never saw him again. Her gaze drifted up to his chest, a plain white t-shirt, partially covered by flannel, that she couldn't forget if she tried. Up to his neck, and his chin, completely covered in stubble, even more than usual, and she knew she was taking too long but couldn't bear to repeat herself only to have him reject her.  
  
"Lorelei," he pleaded softly, and she finally looked into his eyes. The earlier hardness was gone and they were beautiful, encouraging, and they gave her hope.  
  
"I said, um," she paused and cleared her throat, "that I love you." Her eyes never left his, and she saw the transformation from uncertainty to relief, she could see him smile without needing to see his mouth.  
  
"I love you too, Lorelei." His voice was husky with emotion, and he leaned towards her, over the counter, stopping halfway. She felt a tear slide down her cheek as she, in turn, leaned towards him. They kissed tentatively at first, but soon he was stroking her hair, and whispering the kind of things he never thought he would. She responded in kind, but squeaked in pain as she stumbled against the counter. Luke immediately pulled back and looked at her in concern.  
  
"Maybe we'd better continue this on the same side of the counter," she murmured.  
  
"We definitely should," he replied with a rather wicked grin. They did.  
  
AN yet again: Wow, ff.net's format sucks. I just double-spaced this by hand, hopefully that'll fix the problem of all the dialogue and such running together. 


End file.
